1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of drying an extruded ceramic cylindrical body used for obtaining thin and elongated ceramic cylindrical articles with high dimensional accuracy.
2. Related Art Statement
The shaping of a ceramic cylindrical body is usually performed by an extrusion-molding process. In this process, however, it is difficult to dry a soft ceramic cylindrical body just after the extrusion-molding without causing the deformation of the body. That is, in the conventional technique, the extruded ceramic cylindrical body has been dried by heating from an exterior through microwaves or the like while being held on a support coated with a lubricating oil. Therefore, the ceramic cylindrical body is undesirably deformed due to the frictional resistance between the ceramic body and the support before the drying, and also it is difficult to dry the inside of the ceramic cylindrical body and the contact portion with the support thereof and the strain is produced in the ceramic cylindrical body due to the uneven drying. In addition to the above process, there is a method wherein the ceramic cylindrical body is extruded in an up or down direction and dried without using the support. In this method, however, the ceramic cylindrical body is deformed by its own weight, so that it is substantially impossible to dry the ceramic cylindrical body while maintaining a high extruded dimensional accuracy.